Kitahara Hakushuu/Trivia
* His real name is Kitahara Ryuukichi. * Around the time he was in the English Literature department of Waseda University, his pen name was Kitahara Shasui. He, Wakayama Bokusui and Nakabayashi Sosui were called "The Three Waters of Waseda", for the kanji 水 (sui) in their names meaning water. * As a student, he became interested in the poetry of Shimazaki Touson. * In 1906 he joined the Shinshisha (New Poetry Association) and published poems in its magazine Myoujou (Morning Star) that brought him instant fame as a rising young poet and served as an introduction to a wide circle of writers and poets. * In 1908 he founded, with others, the Pan no Kai in opposition to the Naturalism that dominated the literary circles at that time and which was innovative in including painters, musicians and actors as well as writers. * His first book of poetry was Jashuumon (Heretics), which established his reputation. * He introduced a new symbolic, decadent style into the genre of the traditional 31-syllable tanka and founded an innovative tanka magazine, tittled Tama. * Since Hakushuu played a major role in reviving the genre and bringing it back into literary favor, a serious student of the genre will want to familiarize himself with the poet and his poetic output. He founded a large number of poetry groups, and ten poetry journals. He exerted a major influence not only on the poets of his time, but also on the next generation of modern poets, many who, began their careers under his tutelage. * Histories of modern Japanese literature tend to separate his achievements in the shi (modern poetry) from those in the tanka. In Japan, where most poets concentrate on one or the other of these forms, this approach is inevitable. Hakushuu, however, wrote with equal facility in both forms. * In 1940 he was elected a member of the Academy of Arts of Japan. * He published a total of over 200 books within his lifetime. These included large collections of children’s poems, and as he continued to experiment with his style, anthologies inspired by classical Japanese literature. He also write anthems for high schools around the country such as Touyou Eiwa Jogakuin. * In celebration of the 100th anniversary of his birth, Kitahara Hakushuu Memorial Park (consisting of his birthplace and a museum) was opened in 1985. Constructed right beside the house where he was born, the museum’s first floor displays materials relating to the history and folklore of Yanagawa’s riverside district, while the second floor is dedicated to Kitahara Hakushuu’s life story and significant achievements. A special exhibition is held in November along with the Hakushuu Festival. * His hometown of Yanagawa, in Fukuoka Prefecture, continues to celebrate his life and works with an annual festival every November that includes poetry readings and music. * Given Kitahara’s extensive oeuvre and legacy, a great number of his poems were set to music. Specifically, his collaboration with Kosaku Yamada, one of the pioneering figures in the history of Japanese art song. He composed roughly 700 commpositions, among them the song cycle Songs of Aiyan to poems by Kitahara Hakushuu. As the poems are written in the local Kyushu dialect, Yamada's musical setting incorporates aspects of Japanese theatre and lyricism, lending at moments an almost otherworldly tonality to the music. * Margaret Benton Fukasawa and Janine Beichman (the book's editor) published a book called Kitahara Hakushuu: His Life And Poetry. Fukasawa died before the book was published, but Beichman published it without changing the manuscript. Hakushuu's disciples, Kimata Osamu and Yabuta Yoshio, were helpful to Fukasawa. * He suffered from cholera at the age of two. * He died at age 57 due to diabetes. His grave is located at the Tama Reien in the outskirts of Tokyo.